


Between The Lines The Real Story Grows

by clotpolesonly



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/F, Freya's second life sucks too, Immortal Merlin, Merlin thinks she deserves a better life this time around, Reincarnation, Time Travel, and also a girlfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-01 21:23:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10930305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/pseuds/clotpolesonly
Summary: “You fancy ladies, you say?”“So what if I do?” Freya asked through gritted teeth.Old Man Em just nodded to himself, like he was pleased with her answer—not a response she had ever gotten before. Then he brought a hand up to stroke his beard contemplatively and said, “What about castles? How do you feel about those?”“They’re...fine?” she said slowly.“Ladiesincastles?”“Why are you asking me all these questions?” Freya demanded, horrified to feel a blush creeping up on her cheeks at the leading tone in Em’s words.





	Between The Lines The Real Story Grows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merlinsdeheune (sindhunathi)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sindhunathi/gifts).



> well, let me just tell you, this was a LOT of firsts for me! first time pinch-hitting, first time writing time travel, first time writing femslash, first time writing Freya OR Vivian in anything tbh!! i'd never even considered them together, but ya know? i still had a lot of fun writing this, even if it did kick my butt at times.
> 
> merlinsdeheune, i genuinely hope you enjoy what i did with your prompt! the art is absolutely lovely and i can only hope my fic does it justice ^u^

Freya liked the library. It was warm and quiet, full of people who were too preoccupied to pay her any mind. It smelled like old paper and binding glue. There were more squishy armchairs and sofas than there ever were readers to sit in them, and even computers open for anyone’s use.

And more than anything else, no one ever asked her to pay for anything. She could spend hours in the stacks, roaming the aisles, curled up with one of the infinite books, and no one ever came over to chivvy her out the door or demand she buy something instead of loitering around. She could be there the whole day and not a person would complain about it.

It was almost perfect. The only thing it was missing was a shower, but that was what the local gym and her basic membership were for. And a bed, of course, but Freya was long since used to going without that. The old sleeping bag tucked away in an alcove of an abandoned warehouse nearby served her well enough most nights. And for nights when it didn’t, the gym was open twenty-four hours, so she just had to stay awake all night: the price of not freezing to death.

The other thing she liked about the library wasn’t a thing at all, but a person. Old Man Em was indeed old, wrinkly and slow with a white beard almost to his waist, and he never told anyone his real name. He was a sweet man, always ready with a smile for anyone who came his way, but he was quick as a whip and had a sharp tongue he wasn’t afraid to unleash on anyone who misbehaved in his precious library. It was his home, and it seemed like he had read every single book on the shelves and a thousand more besides.

He was by far Freya’s favorite of the librarians. They were all nice enough, but he was the only one that had never side-eyed her during the weekdays; more than once, the others had looked a second away from calling a truancy officer or otherwise demanding why a girl her age wasn’t in school. She didn’t want to answer those questions, and she really didn’t want to have to find a new safe place to spend her days, so she was immensely grateful for Old Man Em’s serene, nonjudgmental presence.

He seemed to have taken a liking to her as well, quicker than she had to him. The first time he had tried to feed her had almost sent Freya running for the hills. It had been a large platter of fresh strawberries, grapes, pretzels, and little cheese cubes. He had claimed that it had been left over from a function that morning and that anyone was welcome to it, but it had been such a thin excuse that Freya’s hackles had raised automatically.

“It don’t need your _pity,_ ” she’d snarled at him, arms wrapped around herself like it could hide how thin she was.

Old Man Em hadn’t been intimidated in the least. He’d just popped a cheese cube into his mouth and smiled at her, blue eyes bright and keen and strangely familiar in a way Freya could never find words to explain, even to herself.

“There is pity,” he’d said, “and there is compassion.”

He’d added nothing more. He had simply went on snacking, though he did turn the sampler around until the strawberries were directly in front of Freya. Still smarting from the clear assumption that she couldn’t feed herself, she had tried to keep hold of her indignation, but strawberries had always been her favorite.

That wasn’t the last time he had brought her food, and Freya had long since stopped protesting. Sometimes he brought in old clothes too, coats and gloves and scarves he claimed were throwaways from his niece even though the other librarians were certain that Old Man Em had no family. It should’ve felt like charity. From anyone else it would have, but something about the gentle warmth in those eyes made Freya feel safe and cared for in a way she hadn’t in a very long time, and she couldn’t bring herself to turn the gifts away.

There hadn’t been any gifts or snacks today. In fact, she was fairly sure that Old Man Em wasn’t on shift, but then she wasn’t usually in quite this early in the day. She’d taken refuge inside well before mid-morning because someone had moved into the alleyway outside the building she squatted in: a man with long, scraggly hair, dirt under his ragged nails, and a smile that made her cower. She was never comfortable around adult men—Old Man Em being the exception to that well-earned rule—but this one especially set off all her alarms until she’d had no choice but to flee.

Now she was holed up on the second floor of the library, hidden in the stacks to avoid the children’s group having story time in the main reading area. She didn’t have a book herself, but she didn’t need one. She just leaned her head back against the closest shelf, wrapped her arms around her legs, and listened for the teacher’s voice. He was reading a kid’s book about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Freya had always liked those stories, though she was more partial to those of Merlin and his love Nimue, the Lady of the Lake.

She had almost managed to doze off—tired after a night of uneasy half-sleep, too wary of the man outside her building to actually relax—when the clomp of heavy footsteps nearby roused her. Her head made contact with the shelf above her and she couldn’t quite muffle her yelp, more of surprise than pain. She was still rubbing at her forehead when the footsteps rounded the corner into the aisle.

Old Man Em blinked down at her with a benign smile, apparently not at all surprised to find her there.

“There you are, dear thing,” he said, voice creaky but undeniably pleasant. “What’re you doing all the way down there?”

“Just listening,” Freya told him, thumbing over her shoulder in the direction of the reading group.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “You do love your knights and castles, don’t you?”

Freya gave him a sly smile. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “I think I rather fancy the wizards and ladies. The knights are too high on their horses for my tastes.”

Em laughed, long beard swaying as he shook his head.

“You’re not wrong there,” he wheezed. “Bunch of dollopheads, they were.”

Freya chuckled too; she was always tickled pink by the strange things Em said, his creative insults in particular. She ducked her head to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear and when she looked up, Em had stopped laughing. He was just looking at her now, head tilted and lips pursed in thought.

“You fancy ladies, you say?” he asked after a long moment.

Freya clenched a hand in the skirt of her dress on reflex, an uneasy chill running up her spine. She wished that it wouldn’t, that she could be completely at ease and trust Old Man Em without question, but experience had taught her that wasn’t wise. No matter how kind someone has been to you in the past, that doesn’t guarantee they always will be, not if they hear something about you that they don’t like.

She wouldn’t lie though. She was done lying about herself.

“So what if I do?” she asked through gritted teeth.

Em just nodded to himself, like he was pleased with her answer—not a response she had ever gotten before. Then he brought a hand up to stroke his beard contemplatively and said, “What about castles? How do you feel about those?”

Freya frowned up at him, utterly confused now.

“They’re...fine?” she said slowly. She couldn’t really say that she had an opinion on the matter, given that she’d never been inside one. Or outside one, for that matter. They looked lovely in pictures, at least.

“Ladies _in_ castles?”

“Why are you asking me all these questions?” Freya demanded, horrified to feel a blush creeping up on her cheeks at the leading tone in Em’s words.

He didn’t answer, just gave her another long, purse-lipped look like he was thinking very hard. Then he nodded again and promptly disappeared into the next aisle. He was back again before Freya even had the chance to question the abrupt departure and there was a book in his hands.

It looked old, older than most of the others on the shelves around them considering they were in a contemporary section, but well-maintained. Like it could have come from the archives or the special collections. Only, Em hadn’t been gone anywhere near long enough to have retrieved the book from there. Where had he gotten it then?

“I think this may appeal to you,” Old Man Em said, holding the book out to her with both hands. There was something weirdly solemn about his presentation, the care he was taking with it.

Freya eyed the thing with some wariness, but she had no reason not to take it. She levered herself to her feet and tentatively lifted the book out of Em’s hands.

It wasn’t as heavy as she’d expected it to be, and it was strangely warm to the touch. Her fingers tingled with something like a static shock, but that didn’t make any sense. Her wrong-footedness was making her jumpy, that was all.

Em just smiled at her when she looked to him for an explanation. Suddenly he seemed almost sad, like the light in his sharp eyes had been dimmed, though she couldn’t think of any reason why that would be the case.

“Thank you,” she said anyway; being homeless didn’t mean she didn’t have manners, no matter how many people seemed to think that. “What section is it from? I’ll reshelve it when I’m finished.”

Em shook his head though.

“It’s for you,” he said. “This one is all for you, dear thing.”

“For me?” Freya asked. “As in...to keep? Why would you give this to me?”

“In the hopes that it might transport you,” Em said with another sad smile. “You’re a good girl, Freya. And you deserve far better than you’ve gotten. You always have.”

Freya blinked away sudden tears; she didn’t indulge in self-pity or bouts of melancholy, just as a rule, but there was something about the old librarian’s sincerity that made her ache for better times, back when she’d had a home, family, the luxury of feeling _safe_ and secure. Em and his library were the only ones who’d made her feel like that in a long time.

So why did this feel like a goodbye?

“This is my gift to you,” Em said, his weathered hand coming to rest gently on her shoulder. “I hope it serves you well.”

Freya had to fight past a lump in her throat to say, “Thank you.”

“It’s a lovely day out,” Em told her. “Shame to be cooped up in here. Why don’t you go out to the courtyard? I’ve found there’s nothing more relaxing than reading a good book in the shade of a good tree.”

Freya let him usher her through the aisles to the middle of the building where wide double doors opened up to the sky. There he patted her shoulder, ran a gentle hand over her hair, and disappeared into the stacks with slow, plodding steps. Freya stared after him for a long moment, odd book clutched tightly to her chest, before she could bring herself to turn away.

The day was balmy and warm with a cool breeze rustling the leaves of the sprawling oak that canopied most of the enclosed area. There were a few picnic tables scattered across the grass but no one else was taking advantage of the nice weather today.

With a glance around to make sure she was alone, Freya kicked off her shoes at the base of the tree and hitched her dress up to free her legs. It only took her a few minutes to scale the tree, even with the book tucked precariously under her arm. She chose a mid-level branch to settle down on, back braced on the trunk and feet pulled up in front of her. It was a strangely comfortable perch.

She pulled out the book again, running her fingers over the embossed leather of its cover. The design was a simple castle. There was no title, neither on the cover nor inside. There was only a dedication page, looking handwritten even though the words were clearly printed.

_To those who have suffered. Find your mountain lake._

_May you live your life amid wildflowers._

Something about it sent a shiver through her, but not in a bad way. It was something she had imagined before: an open field, a riot of color with all the blooms of spring blanketing it, by a sparkling lake in a mountain pass. The picture had always been vivid, so clear in her mind it almost felt like she had been there. She had never left the city though, never even had the chance. Books like this were as close as she would ever get.

She flipped to the first page and began reading. She let herself sink into the words, flowing and beautiful in that way that no contemporary books bothered with. It almost didn’t matter what the actual story was when the rhythm of the telling was so soothing, so captivating. It almost felt like she was floating in it, like the words were coalescing into something tangible around her.

For a moment, she thought she could even see it on the page, clear as day.

And then.

And then there was sun on her face when she’d been in shadow just a second ago. The rumble of traffic that she’d never gone a day without was silent and, when she looked up, the branches over her head had changed. _Everything_ had changed. She stumbled and clambered her way out of the tree to find grassy field that didn’t end in concrete but a stream. And on the other side?

That was a castle. A real life castle rising high up into the blue, blue sky with stone walls and spires and banners flapping in the breeze.

The book fell from Freya’s limp fingers. She snatched it up again as soon as her brain unfroze from the haze of utter shock it had sunk into, but it was empty. Every page was blank, not a trace of the story she’d been reading before.

What the bleeding _fuck_ had Em done? It had to have been him. Freya had never believed in magic before, but this was sort of hard to deny. Unless he had laced the book with some kind of fast-acting hallucinogen—but she could feel the sun on her skin and the grass beneath her bare feet, smell the crispness of the stream, hear the twitter of birds. No drug could make something this real.

Old Man Em had told her that it would transport her. She had taken that figuratively, but apparently that wasn’t the way he’d meant it. He had sent her here, wherever this was.

Castles and ladies, he’d said.

Well, there was the castle. Did that mean there was a lady inside meant for her?

She thought maybe she should’ve hesitated a bit more before wading through the stream and setting off down the dirt path on the other side, but she didn’t. It wasn’t as if she was leaving anything behind.

She was back in time. She knew as soon as she came across the first mule pulling a cart full of earthen pots for the market. Then there were the careworn peasants—they couldn’t be anything else—dressed in simple, heavily-patched clothes, who waved at her as they passed her by. Not a zipper or a pair of jeans in sight, much less a mobile phone.

There was a small crowd of similarly outfitted people on the road by the time she reached the gates of the city, where there were actual _guards_ with chainmail and plate armour and pike weapons in hand. For fuck’s sake, had that batty old man sent her back to medieval times? Jesus Christ, never mind the how or the why, but what the hell was she supposed to _do_ here?

Well, she couldn’t go back, she thought as she squared her shoulders and marched through the gates. Even if she could figure out how, which she likely never would considering she knew literally nothing about magic or spells or whatever, she didn’t think she would want to. She’d had no home and no prospects, no real life to live. At least here, maybe she had a chance to start over, for whatever that was worth.

For lack of anything else, Freya set to wandering the marketplace, taking in the sights and the atmosphere. The smells too, which were...unpleasant, but nothing she hadn’t smelled before. She was sure she would get used to them pretty quickly. The people were generally friendly—and Freya decided she wasn’t going to question how she could understand them without trouble considering she was fairly certain there should be a language in barrier in place here—and none of them looked at her sideways for her ratty dress and bare feet like the people in her time period always had.

Well, almost none of them did.

Freya had been working her way closer to the castle, observing and trying not to get under anyone’s feet as they went about their work. She was in the shadow of the walls when she heard a shrill voice rising over the babble of the crowd. It wasn’t hard to find the source considering the fuss she was making.

It was a lady. Like an actual Lady, in a beautiful flowing gown and everything. Exquisite blonde curls cascaded down her back and there were a pair of guards standing attentively at her shoulder. She made a stunning picture, straight out of the sort of storybook that had brought Freya here. Be that as it may, she didn’t exactly embody elegance.

“You call this silk?” the lady demanded, a lovely yellow dress held up in her hands and a much less well-off woman cowering before her. “Please! This isn’t fit for a wretch, much less a princess. My father would have your head for daring to offer me this thing. Make me something better!”

Freya’s mouth fell open, indignation rendering her speechless. And then the lady—the _princess—_ tossed the dress into the dirt and the poor seamstress burst into tears. In a second, Freya had crossed the road and gathered the dress up in her arms. It seemed perfectly silky to her, certainly far finer than anything she had ever worn.

“Don’t listen to her,” she said lowly, pressing the dress into the distraught seamstress’s arms. “It’s lovely, I promise. And you!” Freya rounded on the princess. “Where do you get off?”

The princess gaped at her, mouth opened wide in shock. “I beg your pardon,” she spluttered, obviously far more offended than remorseful.

“You bloody well _should,_ ” Freya said anyway, ignoring the gathering crowd of whispering peasants and the guards tightening their holds on their weapons. “Or better yet, you should beg _her_ pardon,” she said, nodding to the woman standing behind her, trying her damnedest to fade out of view.

Freya wouldn’t let herself shrink like that, couldn’t bring herself to lay down and be trampled. Back home, in the shadiest parts of town where she had spent her nights since losing her home, she’d eked out a territory and defended it for months alone and unaided; she never would’ve managed that if she’d been timid, if she’d let people walk all over her. Damned if she would let this stuck up bint walk all over someone else.

“What gives you the right, hm?” Freya demanded. “What makes it okay for you to spit in the face of someone doing an honest day’s work? Skilled work that _you_ couldn’t do if you tried, I’d bet. What right have you to look down on that?”

“I have a right to do as I please,” the lady said, tossing her head so that her curls swung out behind her, catching the sunlight. “I don’t know who you think you are to speak to me in such a way, but I am the Crown Princess of—”

“And I suppose that makes you better than us?” Freya asked, the sneer in her tone making it perfectly plain what she thought of that idea.

The princess looked downright baffled, like she had never heard such madness in her life. “Of course it does!”

“ _Bollocks!_ ”

There were gasps and titters all around. Even the guards looked faintly scandalized through the cutouts of their helmets. There was a ruckus going on near the castle gates, raised voices and such, but the princess’s attention was fully on Freya, narrowed blue eyes looking her up and down with what seemed to be a mix of disdain and intrigue.

The scrutiny made Freya flush, metaphorical hackles raising, but there was no way she was going to back down from what she’d said now. In for a penny and all that, after all. There had been times in her life when she’d had to give in, give up. There had been times when the risk to her safety had outweighed the reward of keeping her basic human dignity, when fear had silenced her.

But here, in this place—this time—she felt bold. Maybe it was the nagging sense of surreality, that doubt in the back of her mind that any of this was even truly happening, but if ever there were a time and place to play the heroine, it would be here and now, wouldn’t it?

“You’re no better than us,” Freya declared, head held high and voice steady. “Princess or not, underneath it all you’re a woman like any other, and you deserve exactly as much respect as you show to the people around you. If you want a service done, you ask nicely and you pay well and you show the gratitude the vendor is owed for that service. Anything less is a disgrace.”

The princess’s open mouth snapped closed at that, her jaw clenching tightly. Her hands—slender and pale and no doubt soft from never having worked a day in her life—fisted in her skirt, bunching up the delicate fabric. Those blue eyes shifted away from Freya abruptly, darting around the sea of people looking on with all the breathless glee of anyone waiting for a tense situation to either diffuse or explode. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for a response or maybe a verdict.

The fuss from the gates reached them before the princess found her words.

“Lady Vivian!” a man in a blue tabard and full armour called out, pushing his way through the spectators until he reached her side. “What in the devil is going on here?”

His eyes fell on Freya and his hand fell to the hilt of the sword he had on his hip; small though Freya was, her stance was undeniably aggressive, and when put in close quarters with a member of the royal family, aggressive was clearly not an acceptable thing to be. All that fear that had been mysteriously absent came rushing back to her, adrenaline coursing through her veins in a second and her mind already spinning through a long list of exit strategies and escape routes in case the man decided her offense was worth drawing that sword.

“Your Highness,” the knight said without turning away from Freya, “who is this that threatens you? Have you been harmed?”

Freya was already shifting her weight, preparing to bolt, when the princess let out a peal of falsely bright laughter.

“Threatened? Harmed?” she repeated like it was ludicrous that he might think such things. “Don’t be stupid, Sir Roland. I assure you there have been no such things here.”

“But, my Lady…” Sir Roland frowned at her, then at Freya again, then at the gaggle of people still standing around to watch the proceedings unfold. “...this woman is—”

“My maidservant.”

Freya’s own mouth dropped open this time. Sir Roland looked equally stunned, but the Lady Vivian did not retract her statement. Instead she stared the knight down as if _daring_ him to question her.

“I sacked my last maid days ago, you know,” she said conversationally. “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had to be out here in the first place, picking up my own things from the marketplace like a common washing girl. Blessedly, I won’t have to do such low work again. That’s what _she’s_ for.”

She pointed at Freya, who was now completely convinced that she was hearing things. She was not, in fact, a maidservant, and why in god’s name would the princess insist that she was?

Sir Roland looked as dubious about the situation as Freya felt. He peered closely at all the faces around him, apparently searching for a way to disprove the lady’s statement, but no one spoke up with an alternative story. Even the guards at Vivian’s shoulders just shifted uneasily on their feet. Freya stayed as still as possible, not entirely convinced that she shouldn’t be running, until Roland turned away from her and back to his mistress.

“Princess, you’re sure this wretch hasn’t been—”

He didn’t get to finish his question. Vivian made a noise of impatience, once more throwing her hair back over her shoulder with a flick, and planted her hands on her hips.

“What are you hoping to do here, Roland?” she demanded, the very picture of petulence. “Are you going to clap my new maidservant in irons? Throw a defenseless serving girl in the dungeons? Go to my father with tall tales of treachery and deceit in the market, is that it?”

The mention of the king was enough to make Roland step back, hands coming up in front of him in a gesture of surrender.

“Alright, alright,” he said. “Apologies, my Lady. You know I seek only to see you safe and out of harm’s way.”

“Apparently you seek to interrupt my shopping and harass my staff,” Lady Vivian snapped. Suddenly she was at Freya’s side, wrapping a satin-clad arm around her shoulders and squeezing. “Now, if you don’t mind,” she said primly, “my maid and I are going to go about our business. I suggest you go about yours.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Once the initial rush of indignation-fueled courage had passed, taking the comforting dreamlike feeling with it to leave stark reality in its wake, the next hour or two passed in a bit of a blur. Before she’d quite realized it, Freya found herself in a small stone antechamber in the palace, connected to a lavishly decorated suite belonging to the bona fide princess who had suddenly decided to take her under her wing and into her employ.

Nothing about it made sense, not a damn thing. It wasn’t like the two of them had exactly gotten off to a good start, considering the yelling and the dressing down and the making a scene. By all rights, Freya was fairly certain that she should’ve been arrested or at least firmly escorted off the premises. Instead she was in a cozy room with a low bed, a rickety writing desk, and a small bureau that already had several simple dresses in it. “A” didn’t seem to connect to “B” in any way that she could discern.

And yet, it was a job, the princess hadn’t been bluffing about that. It was a job and a warm place to stay, which was a damn sight more than Freya’d had a few hours ago. Freya had been dropped out of the sky in a foreign land, a foreign _time,_ with nothing but the clothes on her back and no matter the strange chain of events that had led her here, she couldn’t bring herself to look this particular gift horse in the mouth; she knew all too well how awful and dangerous it was to go without shelter or resources, and she honestly didn’t know if it would be better or worse in this time period but she didn’t particularly want to take a chance on finding out.

So she did the job. She kept her head down for the most part and played the role of maidservant to the princess. It wasn’t a particularly difficult job once she figured out the particulars. The other servants were happy enough to point her in the right direction—honestly, they seemed sort of relieved that none of _them_ would be drafted into serving Vivian next—and give her instructions on what should probably have been simple and well-known tasks for a girl in this time, and Freya was quick enough on the uptake not to make a fool of herself more than once or twice.

It was actually sort of nice. For the first time in her life, she was gainfully employed. She had money in her pocket, a roof over her head every night, and three square meals from the palace kitchens. The fare wasn’t exactly what she was used to—no processed foods here, that was for sure—but it was filling and she’d never been picky about taste. She was even growing accustomed to the lack of indoor plumbing and central heating. For a life where she didn’t spend every other night being chased away from park benches by men with billy clubs, she would happily go without such amenities.

The only true obstacle to her happiness in this time period was her mistress.

Lady Vivian was rude. She was stuck-up and entitled and condescending and vain and a whole host of other unpleasant traits that Freya listed off under her breath whenever she was alone to keep herself from shouting them in the pompous woman’s face when she wasn’t.

Vivian wanted everything done perfectly and she wanted it done the instant she snapped her fingers, no matter if Freya was in the middle of another chore or not. She draped herself in the sort of finery and opulence that most people in the kingdom would never see over the course of a lifetime, reveling in her supposed superiority when she hadn’t done a damn thing to earn it, and just generally being a nuisance of a person.

That wasn’t to say that she was completely awful, though. If she’d been entirely unbearable with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, Freya would’ve cut her losses and looked for employment elsewhere; she’d spent far too long chafing under impossible home environments to put herself through that again. But weeks later, Freya was still here because there was _something_ that wouldn’t quite let her bail out.

While not a charitable person by nature _or_ by nurture, Freya did like to give credit where it was due. For all her vapidity, Vivian wasn’t stupid. She was actually incredibly clever and quick-witted, at least when it came to her silver tongue and the sharp comments it spit out at the drop of a hat whenever she deemed the people around her to be worth her vitriol. Freya had caught her a few times tucked in the window seat in her chambers, curled up with one of the rare books of poetry from the castle’s library, her red painted lips moving as she followed the flowing words intently.

And she wasn’t _completely_ selfish, if Freya was honest. Her generous moments were sort of hard to spot amidst the flagrant entitlement she showed most of the time, but on occasion Vivian could be seen tossing out clothes she’d been fawning over just the day before, suddenly declaring them to be unfit and demanding they be taken away at once, usually making some offhand comment about someone else being an eyesore in the same breath. And if that someone somehow ended up with a new gown? Well, Vivian would be the last person to ever acknowledge it out loud, but Freya saw the way her sharp blue eyes followed the kitchen girl’s delighted skipping across the courtyard all the way to the well and back.

On more than one instance, Freya had found herself treated to a considerable portion of Vivian’s meals. The princess would get halfway through the platter of sumptuous food before bemoaning how full she was and abruptly shoving Freya down at the table to finish it for her, even when Freya remarked that she had already eaten.

“You’d never guess from looking at you,” Vivian would say with a sniff. “At a glance, you’d think we didn’t feed you at all. We can’t very well have you looking like an underfed urchin, can we? People will _talk!_ ”

So Freya ate the food, not just because she’d long been conditioned to never turn her nose up at food when it was offered, but also because Vivian seemed so determined to give it to her if, and only if, she could do so without it looking like a gesture of kindness. She let Vivian give her better clothes and nice shoes and a soft cape that swept along the floor when she walked, each gift accompanied by some sort of tactless or insulting observation that clearly necessitated it.

And after a few weeks, Freya was starting to question things. Namely, why Vivian was _still_ giving her gifts. Freya had more pretty dresses in her wardrobe now than she’d ever had in her life. She had a fur cloak with a clasp of real gold, for god’s sake, and still at least once a week Vivian would say she looked like a vagabond and needed something better.

Vivian had even given her books! Books, especially non-historical ones like poetry, were rare and expensive and jealously guarded, and yet Vivian had taken to handing them off to Freya when she was finished with them like it was nothing. The princess said it was just because she didn’t feel like walking all the way back to the library to return them, but Freya didn’t believe that for a second. She had remarked once upon her own love of reading and not two days later she’d had a book in her hand, hers to keep. That was no coincidence.

She was reading one such book, tucked into the window seat and still quietly marveling over what sort of magic Em had done that made her able to read and speak Olde English fluently, when Vivian came slamming into the room. Before the door had even shut behind her, the princess was talking a mile a minute, telling the story of her day so far amid a flurry of vehement complaints and derisive comments. Apparently she had given an epic dressing down to one of the up and coming noblemen, one that her father had borne witness to and subsequently scolded her for.

“Really, I don’t understand what the big problem was,” she said, skirts whipping around her ankles as she paced the room, too agitated to be still. “It’s not as if everyone in court doesn’t know that Lord Donovan is an utter buffoon. My father should have _thanked_ me for bringing his many failings into the open air for all to see, lest he be as taken in by the man’s dubious charms as the rest. Pity he’s bedding Lord Bernum’s wife or I could’ve had him banished, but now I’ll just have to settle for convincing all the serving girls that he has the palsy.”

Freya bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing; Vivian didn’t appreciate laughter when her dander was up this high, no matter how amusingly outrageous her colorful rants could get. Freya closed her book and laid it aside, turning to watch as Vivian snatched up a gilded brush from her vanity and began tugging it through her hair with rough strokes that did more damage to her curls than they did good, then tossed it back down with a clatter and a noise of vexation.

Abruptly, Vivian marched to the door, yanked it open, and shouted shrilly into the corridor until a servant boy came skidding up to her with a breathless, “Yes, your Highness?”

“Fetch me a bath,” Vivian snapped. “The largest in the castle, I tell you. And make it hot, not that awful tepid slop you idiots seem to think constitutes proper bathwater, with lilac petals _and_ rose oil. And do it in ten minutes or less or I’ll have you sacked. Go!”

The poor boy took off down the corridor at a dead run. Before his footsteps had even faded away, Vivian had snagged a harried looking maid and was snapping at her to bring her a meal from the kitchens, a whole pheasant and half a dozen out of season fruits and a slew of other things despite it being mid-afternoon and nowhere near the normal time for supper. The maid tried to tell her that it was impossible to cook such a meal in the half hour Vivian had decreed, but the princess just shrieked at her to make it happen on pain of banishment and snapped the door shut in her face.

Freya was on her feet by the time Vivian turned back around, looking only marginally less peevish after venting so much ire at her innocent staff. A familiar indignation made Freya’s heart pound and her hands curl into fists at her side, but there was something else to it now too, an underlying...disappointment, perhaps?

“Why do you always do that?” Freya asked, far more boldly than she had dared since their first confrontation in the marketplace. Out of a healthy respect for her new surroundings and a desire not to get arrested for impudence, she had tried to adopt the appropriate deference towards those of a higher station than her, but in moments like this she couldn’t shake the underdog spirit that had kept her alive in modern times. Some bullies just needed someone to push back, and since the other servants clearly weren’t going to do it, that left her.

Vivian stiffened, drawing herself up to her fullest height—only two or three inches more—like she always did when Freya spoke out of turn. “Do what?”

“You make such outlandish demands,” Freya said. “You give them impossible orders and then threaten their livelihoods if they don’t manage them.”

“I expect them to do their jobs! Is that so much to ask?”

“But for what?” Freya asked, honestly at a loss. “What purpose does it serve?”

“ _Their_ purpose is to serve _me,_ ” Vivian told her, nose in the air. She whirled around to sit at her vanity, yanking pins out of her hair and keeping her eyes firmly on her own reflection in the mirror instead of on her increasingly angry maid.

“Yes, technically that is a servant’s purpose,” Freya allowed, “but it is a princess’s purpose to serve her people, maids and kitchen boys included.”

Vivian snorted, throwing a pin down on the vanity hard enough that it skittered across the tabletop and onto the floor.

“Oh please,” she muttered, almost too lowly for Freya to hear but far too bitter to be ignored. “A princess _has_ no purpose.”

That comment might have given Freya pause if she weren’t so angry. As it was she rolled her eyes and said, “And it’s not just the demands you make, it’s the _way_ you make them. Why do you have to be so damned rude to everyone? The servants, the merchants, even your own courtiers! You show no respect for anyone around you. Like that nobleman you shouted at today. What had he done to deserve it?”

“I’ll tell you what he _didn’t_ do,” Vivian snapped, twisting in her chair to fix Freya with an absolutely scathing look. “His _job._ The man’s a fool and an incompetent who hasn’t earned an ounce of the respect he’s afforded. You talk of _serving the people._ Well, that man is one of the ones charged with it and he does a piss-poor job, I’ll have you know.”

“And you think you could do it better?” Freya asked, not hiding any of her skepticism on the matter.

Considering how openly scornful Vivian had been of the concept just a moment ago, Freya thought she could be forgiven her surprise when the princess burst out with, “ _Yes, I bloody well do!_ ” For a stunned moment it looked like Vivian was going to blow it off, maybe flounce away in a billow of skirts and pretend she’d never said it, but then she just turned to face the mirror again instead. She made another attempt at brushing her hair, aggressively enough that it had to hurt, and her jaw was clenched.

“If anyone bothered to ask _me,_ ” she said tightly, “I would gladly tell them every reason that Lord Donovan’s proposed plan is idiotic, starting and ending with how it will leave a good portion of our fallow fields barren and unusable within a few seasons. But no one does ask me. No one _ever_ asks me because why would a princess know anything about farming?”

She scoffed, eminently disdainful, but Freya thought her eyes looked overly bright. It might’ve just been the reflection though; she had never seen Vivian cry over anything in all the weeks she’d been there. She certainly didn’t stop to blubber now. She set about braiding her own hair—a task she usually expected Freya or one of the other maids to do for her—with harsh, jerky motions.

“Of course she wouldn’t,” she went on. “How could a lady possibly understand something as complex as agriculture or economics? Why should a princess actually be _involved_ in running her kingdom? After all, her only _real_ job is to smile and look pretty and be married off to the wealthiest and most influential suitor who’ll have her so that she can be shipped off to a different kingdom that she will have even less of a say in running. _That_ is a princess’s true purpose.”

Vivian’s hand fluttered in front of her for a moment as she ran out of hair to braid and couldn’t find a ribbon to tie it off with. It clenched into a fist, knuckles straining white, and there were definite tears in her eyes now, though she refused to let them spill over. She had too much dignity to let herself look so weak, so easily affected by the way her peers viewed her.

That was a feeling Freya knew well. To be looked down upon, constantly overlooked and cast aside. She’d felt that special patronizing brand of scorn far too many times in her short life: as a child, as a girl, as a queer woman, as poor and then homeless. She could never count the number of times she had bit her lip until it bled just to keep from letting those same tears fall where anyone could see them and take advantage of that vulnerability.

Freya’s anger fled far faster than she could hold onto it. “Vivian,” she said softly, but the sympathy in her tone clearly didn’t land well.

“So maybe I’m rude,” Vivian admitted, one hand pulling at drawers and rummaging through them roughly while the other still held tightly to the end of her plait. “Maybe I’m insolent. Maybe I speak out of turn and let my tongue run away with me. What does it matter? It’s not as if anyone’s _listening._ ”

Vivian finally got hold of a ribbon in one of the drawers only to find that it was stuck on something. She tugged at it hard, but it refused to come loose and the princess made a noise of helpless frustration. She flung her careful braid over her shoulder in favor of attacking the ribbon with both hands until it finally tore free, leaving her with a quickly unraveling braid and a jagged length of torn satin too short to do her any good.

Freya caught Vivian’s hand in her own before she could throw the ribbon away like she so clearly wanted to. The princess was breathing hard, chest heaving and catching on every other breath like she was fighting back sobs, but she still stubbornly refused to cry. The hand Freya held was trembling.

Carefully, Freya worked the tight fist open so that she could pull the torn ribbon from it. Then she pulled another from the depths of the open drawer, unwinding it from the nail the other had been caught on. Without a word, Freya ran her fingers through the princess’s hair to pull the last of the failed braid free and set about getting it done properly, tying the plait off with a neat bow when she was finished.

Vivian didn’t say anything through this, nor did she look at Freya through the mirror. She kept her eyes firmly on her own hands clenched in her lap, apparently out of words for the time being. Or maybe ashamed of her outburst. When Freya laid the finished braid over her shoulder to fall down her front, Vivian caught hold of the end of it like she needed something to hold onto, but she stayed quiet.

Freya laid tentative hands on her mistress’s shoulders, waiting a bit to see if Vivian would push her away or come out with some scathing comment, but there was little reaction at all.

After a long moment, Freya finally said, “Smiling and looking pretty isn’t all you’re meant for.”

Vivian went tense under her hands, but still she didn’t push her off, so Freya took that as tacit permission to continue.

“You’re better than this, Vivian. With a mind like yours you could do so much good, if only you stopped wasting it on gossip and petty power plays with people who could never match you if they tried. That’s just cruel.”

Vivian sniffed but didn’t try to argue the point. With her eyes downcast like this and her usual effervescence snuffed out, it seemed like maybe she knew exactly how callous her facade was and she didn’t seem to like it any more than her targets did. Freya squeezed her shoulders bracingly.

“All you need is the chance to apply yourself properly,” she said. “If you have ideas, ways to improve things, then you should voice them.”

“And how do you propose I do that?” Vivian asked with a shadow of her usual haughtiness. “In case you haven’t been listening either, I’ve tried voicing them. I’ve shouted them for all to hear and it hasn’t done me any good.”

“Then maybe you should try less shouting and more talking,” Freya suggested. “Men are thick, especially the kind around here who think they’re better than us. The second they think a woman is getting emotional, they decide she’s speaking nonsense whether she is or not. It’s utterly ridiculous, but there’s not much we can do about it in the short run. But perhaps if you reined in your temper a bit and spoke plainly, some of them might open their ears a bit.”

Vivian’s eyes finally met hers, her gaze no less piercing for the mirror distancing them. For once though, it didn’t feel sharp, like judgment being cast. It was just a look, long and lingering and more open than Freya had yet seen. It made her seem younger somehow.

“Do you really expect that to work?” Vivian asked in a tone that was too hopeless to even qualify as skeptical.

“It can’t hurt to try,” Freya countered. “You’re worth so much more than your weight in your silk, Vivian. You deserve to be heard and respected as much as anyone else. Don’t let those pseudo-noble pricks convince you of anything else.”

Vivian let out a snort of laughter, surprising the both of them. With a grudging half-smile on her face, she reached up to wipe away the tenacious tears from her lashes. When she looked up at Freya again, the smile lingered and Freya couldn’t help but smile back. She looked as though she might say something, but a knock sounded through the chamber.

Vivian was on her feet in a second, Freya’s hands sliding off her shoulders reluctantly. By the time she pulled the door open, her head was high and her shoulders were back, every bit a princess where a second before she’d been nothing but a young woman. It was the serving boy with her bath water, two pails each in hands that shook from the strain. Freya rushed forward to take them from him, helping to hang the pails up over the fire to heat the water as they rolled in the overlarge tub.

Vivian was still stood by the open door when they finished setting up. The boy bowed low to her, stammering out apologies for how long he had taken and begging her pardon for his tardiness. Vivian watched him with lips pursed, one hand holding her braid again as the other gripped the door handle. Her eyes flicked over the boy’s hunched shoulders to Freya, who kept her face blank but held her breath anyway.

Just as the boy was really working himself into a frenzy, Vivian let out a sharp breath and nodded to herself.

“You needn’t worry,” she said firmly. “You’ve done everything I asked just as I asked it. I’m...sorry, for any undue distress I may have caused you. Thank you for the bath, and you’re free to return to your regular duties.”

The boy looked as though he might fall over from the shock. Freya couldn’t blame him, but she also couldn’t stop the grin from blossoming on her face. Warmth flooded her chest as Vivian glanced her way, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth too.

Babbling his thanks amid more effusive apologies, the boy took his leave almost as quickly as he had the first time, though there was less panic in his step now and more staggering relief. When he was gone, Vivian shifted on her feet, cheeks turning somewhat pink as Freya just kept smiling at her.

“What?” she asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Freya shrugged, turning away to adjust one of the water pails—and to give the flustered Vivian some privacy—when she said, “I’m just proud of you, that’s all.”

Vivian’s lack of immediate response was evidence enough of how taken aback she was to hear those words, and the darker flush of her face when Freya looked at her next said that hearing them meant something more to her than she’d likely admit.

Vivian cleared her throat abruptly, glancing away, and Freya chuckled to herself as she began pouring the steaming water into the tub. The sweet scent of lilacs and roses floated up to meet her, light and soothing. She turned back to the princess, hands clasped behind her back in the way of the proper servant, though by now her mistress knew her to be anything but.

“Will my Lady be needing my assistance?” Freya asked. Normally she would stay to help wash Vivian’s hair, fetch her other scented oils, gather her clothes and whatnot, but this time Vivian shook her head quickly.

“No, I— That’s not— I think I can handle it myself tonight,” she said, actually stumbling over her words in a way Freya had never heard from the sharp-tongued woman do before. That combined with the persistent blush and the way she caught Vivian watching her leave through the downturned fan of her eyelashes, sent a thrill through Freya and brought a satisfied smile to her face.

“And Freya?”

Freya halted in the door to the antechamber, looking back to see Vivian already in her shift, yellow silk gown pooled around her feet and hair once more loose around her bare shoulders. She had never looked more undone, nor more regal. Freya licked her lips and cursed her breathlessness when she said, “Yes, your Highness?”

“Thank you,” Vivian said. “For everything.”

Freya gave her a low curtsey: the first time she had done so with any genuine measure of respect. “You’re welcome, my Lady,” she said. “Enjoy your bath.”

Her lady indeed, Freya thought as she fell into her bed. Maybe that batty librarian had known what he was doing after all, sending her here. She sent a quick prayer of thanks into the vague and distant future for Old Man Em, a smile on her lips and the soft splashes of Vivian’s wash in her ears.


End file.
